


Blame

by I_cant_find_a_name



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s07e07 Orison, F/M, Friendship/Love, Protectiveness, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24677542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_cant_find_a_name/pseuds/I_cant_find_a_name
Summary: In the aftermath of her attack by Donnie Pfaster, Scully is supported and cared for by Mulder as they gently work through the trauma.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 6
Kudos: 69





	Blame

**Author's Note:**

> Whilst this work does not include Scully being raped, thank god, it does reference their fears over what could have happened and the medical examination potential rape victims have to endure.  
> As someone sensitive to sexual assault, this story helped me to work through some of my personal shit but I'm not sure that I would always be able to manage reading it if I was having a crappy day.

Neither of them had an answer about whether it was God or the devil or just self-defence that had caused her to shoot him. He didn’t believe in God or the devil and he had been ready to pull the trigger himself. If he’d arrived too late and found her raped, murdered, mutilated, he would have absolutely pulled the trigger. He would have emptied an entire round into the bastard. But he hadn’t been too late. She hadn’t even been undressed and forced into her bathtub yet. He also knew that she had not given up. The damage to her apartment was testament to how hard she’d fought and, irrespective as to if he’d got there or not, she had freed herself, got her gun and would have shot him to save herself. She would have beaten him. She would have survived him.

All that aside, it didn’t make him feel any better about what had happened. About how, for a second time, this evil man had attacked her and sought to add her to his list of victims. He knew that Pfaster had very specifically targeted her. He must have been thinking about her all those nights in prison, playing out his sick fantasies about her over and over and over; imagining her naked body in the bath, washing her hair, giving her a manicure before drying her, forcing himself on her, into her, before brutally killing her, cutting her hair and removing her fingers. This monster had been mentally raping and abusing her every day since he first identified her as a target all those years ago.

He knew he had saved her last time and he would have done his damnedest to save her this time... Except he hadn’t. He hadn’t listened to her during the case, had been quick to disregard her concerns; the repetition of the music, her being woken at the exact moment he had walked out of prison, the alarm clock reading “6:66”, the threads of the case that were entwined with her faith. He had disregarded the parts of this case which made it an X-file. He had viewed the minister’s use of hypnosis as the unexplained element, not all the elements she kept highlighting to him, which he ignored.

Why did he ignore them? Why did he ignore her? Of all the people in the world, _her_. The person he had complete trust and faith in, the person he loved. He tried to justify his disregard of the evidence. He tried to tell himself that he would have ignored those signs had they have been happening to him, rather than her, but he knew in his core that he wouldn’t have ignored them. He would have seen them for exactly what they were and he would have been swept up in those “facts,” irrespective of her rationalising and finding the science of the case; his reliance upon his instincts would have helped solve the case.

But it was her who had experienced the inexplicable. Her. And he who had played the sceptic... And when their roles were reversed like that, when he was the sceptic, he always shut her down, ignored her and it always got her into trouble because she was left going into those situations without him by her side. Without him backing her up. She would never do that to him. It didn’t matter what she felt about his interpretations of the case, about his wild leaps and theories; she scientifically analysed the case, provided evidence which either backed up or ruled out his hypothesis, but she was always there, beside him, protecting him, saving him. And he didn’t do that for her.

They’d been sat on her bed in silence, both internally processing what had happened. She had found herself going round in circles about if she was as evil as Pfaster for killing him until exhaustion overwhelmed her and she gave up, her mind emptying. All she knew was that she had to pack a bag and get out of there. She stood up and looked about her. The bedroom was a mess. There were shards of glass everywhere from where he’d slammed her repeatedly into the mirror, fragments of pottery from the ornaments on her shelves, which themselves were unceremoniously angled across the floor and drawers where she’d pushed it on top of him. Her face looked around her vacantly and he stood up and reached out for her left hand which caused her to turn to him.

“Scully,” he said gently. “Sit. I’ll get your bag and stuff. Just sit.”

She just looked at him blankly but sat down as she was told. He went to her closet and she closed her eyes as she flashed on being trapped in it, left there to await her fate and she felt anxiety sear across her chest. She blinked it away and refocused on just being there, in that moment, safe. There was a dead body in her living room. He couldn’t hurt her anymore but she felt he could, that he could miraculously wake up and continue his attack.

Mulder had placed the bag from the closet on the bed next to her and started going through her drawers, pulling out piles of clothes and dumping them unceremoniously in it. She looked at the mess and it occurred to her that normally she wouldn’t be able to tolerate such bad packing, and would take over, neatly folding and placing everything in the optimal manner to make the most of the space. She was vaguely aware of the items he was pulling out of drawers and knew she had just enough presence of mind to tell him she didn’t need something, or that he’d forgotten another item, but he was packing what she needed. He seemed to be packing everything; the only garments he left were her work suits, and she didn’t argue that she was fine and would want to go to work. He didn’t pack many toiletries, avoiding the bathroom and she was grateful; they were too close to what had happened. She didn’t want them to take anything with them that he would have touched or planned to use, and her partner seemed to instinctively know that.

He did up the bag and looked down at her, and she acknowledged his look of gentle concern.

“C’mon,” he captured her hands in his and pulled her up so she was standing in front of him.

She felt frozen to the spot, unable to move, her body swaying back and forth slightly with each beat of her heart, as though she couldn’t quite find her balance. She just stared at his chest before her and felt like a gravitational force acted upon her as her body leant forward and rested against him as he gently held her to him. She winced as his hands on her back seemed to push splinters into her flesh and she found herself thinking that there must be some splinters of glass from the mirror caught in her wounds, but she didn’t say anything nor pull away from him because she simply needed him to hold her.

“Hey,” he looked down at her, studying her face, his fingers gently lifting her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “You ok? Ready to go?”

She nodded, unable to manage anything more articulate. He put his arm around her shoulders and guided her across the remains of her mirror and into the living room.

She shuddered and stepped backwards slightly as she saw his body lying there on the floor, incapable of moving further, her eyes fixed on him, terrified, as she started shaking. He felt her pull back and stopped, turning to her.

“Scully, look at me,” he said, focusing his eyes on hers. Still she stared at the body, frozen in fear, sure that he was just pretending and that any moment he’d come back to life, get up and come for her.

“Look at me Scully, focus on me.”

He’d dropped the bag and his hands were holding her upper arms, gently pulling her to try and move her attention to his face, not the body on the ground.

“Scully?”

He stepped in front of her, blocking her line of sight and suddenly she became aware again of her environment, of the bustle of investigators, forensic scientists, and her partner whose eyes she now found.

“Scully, it’s ok,” he soothed her. “It’s ok. I got you. You’re safe. He’s not coming back. You beat him, you saved yourself, you put him down.”

She didn’t respond but instead moved her head slightly to look beyond him, wanting to check her attacker was still lying dead on her floor.

“Scully,” again he called her back to him. “Do you need to go back in your bedroom for a while? Wait for them to remove the body?”

She looked at him, feeling more vulnerable than she thought possible, desperately seeking strength in his eyes, unable to think beyond basic instincts of fight/flight/freeze. Right at this moment she was in freeze mode, and he could see the fear in her eyes.

“Hey, Scully, look at me. Do you want to go back in the bedroom for a bit? We don’t have to move any faster than you feel able to,” he reassured her.

She slowly shook her head, but her whole body was rigid and she didn’t think she could actually move even if she wanted to. The adrenaline which had saved her during the attack was gone and now there was only fear. He looked over his shoulder, unwilling to let go of her, as though he sensed she needed him to keep her standing.

“Hey,” he called out to the CSI nearest the body. “Hey, can you throw something over that? Cover it up?”

It wasn’t an angry voice, but it was firm and she realised his expression must have conveyed all the extra detail as the officer moved quickly, apologising and looked kindly at her.

“OK now,” he had turned back to her. “We’re going to walk around here and then we’ll be out the door, alright?”

She nodded. He positioned himself between her and the now covered body, his right arm around her shoulder, whilst his left picked up the bag again. Before she knew it, she was outside, being guided into his car. As his car door closed with him next to her turning the key, she finally felt safe and her body seemed to let out the breath it had been holding for the past hour. She felt all her muscles relax as he reached across her to pull on her seatbelt.

“Thank you,” she croaked, her voice struggling to remember how it worked.

“Hey, it’s nothing,” his eyes were focused on hers, filled with concern. “Where do you want to go? I can take you to your mom’s, or to mine, or a hotel? Wherever you need to be.”

She swallowed, trying to encourage her mouth to moisten and, very quietly, “I have to go to the hospital.”

He felt sick to his stomach at that. He knew she’d been through a living hell but he had been focused on getting her out of the apartment to safety, on leaving that horror behind them. Of course he knew she was injured; she’d had a bloody nose which she’d cleaned off with a damp cloth in her bathroom, but obviously that was the visible damage. The state of her apartment showed there’d been one hell of a struggle so there must be other injuries under her pyjamas. He quietly nodded and put the car into gear and set off.

She didn’t speak on the ride over but, when they got into the ER, she calmly walked up to the front desk and said that she was an agent with the FBI, that she’d been attacked and that she needed to be checked over, and that her injuries needed to be catalogued. The desk clerk looked thrown by her calm demeanour, which jarred with what she’d just requested, and looked across at him. 

“I’m with the FBI too,” he added. “Would it be possible to be put somewhere quieter?”

He realised that he seemed far more shaken at this point than she was. He was sure he looked pale, like he was about to throw up and she gently placed her hand on his arm to reassure him, and he mused on how ridiculous that seemed at that moment. Not that he was worried and upset about what had happened to her, but that right now she was the calm, collected one and him the wreck. She seemed safe there in the hospital, like she was now protected just by her location. Now it was his turn to feel terrified. Terrified for her. Terrified of what injuries she was hiding.

A nurse who was next to the clerk looked at her, a look which understood what she was asking for and she put down the chart she’d been reading through and came around to them.

“That’s ok, Agent...?”

“Dana Scully.”

“Agent Scully. Right this way; we’ve got a side room which you can take, although I may have to throw out a sleeping med student,” she smiled.

The nurse’s hand gently guided her with the softest of touch on her elbow. “Is this your partner?”

“Sorry, yes, Agent Mulder,” he seemed to trip over the words.

The nurse opened the door and looked in as she switched on the light. “You’re in luck! No rest for the students tonight! Here, make yourself comfortable.”

She walked into the room as he held back in the doorway. The nurse placed a gown on the end of the hospital bed.

“Ok, so I’m going to fetch one of our female doctors,” the nurse explained. “She will work with a female nurse to assess your injuries. Now as your injuries were the result of an assault, we will be taking photographs and forensic evidence, such as scraping under your fingernails, taking DNA samples we may find on your body. Now, this is not going to be nice; but we’ll be as gentle as possible. Have you got any questions?”

“No, thank you; I know the process,” she simply acknowledged.

The nurse left and she pulled herself up on to the hospital bed. She seemed cool, detached from the examination they knew was coming. She knew what the procedure entailed; she had performed it herself many times on the victims from the cases they investigated. The only difference was that she was alive and they weren’t.

She looked over at him, to where he was standing quietly near the door. He was staring into space, lost in thought and he realised that he was shaking. He sensed her gaze and met her eyes. He was terrified. She smiled weakly to reassure him, but it was to little avail. They remained in silence, lost in their own thoughts, until the door reopened and the nurse returned with a doctor.

“Hello, Agent Scully, I’m Doctor Kingston and you’ve met Maura already, I think, and she’s explained a bit about the process?”

She nodded.

Maura turned to Mulder. “I’ll show you where you can wait outside.” She opened the door and used her free arm to guide him out the room.

“Sorry, no,” her voice blurted out behind him, causing the nurse and him to stop in their tracks and look over at her. “Please can he stay?”

“Are you sure?” Dr Kingston asked, surprised. “The examination will be quite intimate, invasive.”

“I know. I want him to stay.”

The doctor and nurse glanced across at one another. The nurse shrugged and let the door close. “Well, if you’re staying, Agent Mulder, let me get you somewhere to sit.”

“OK,” Dr Kingston pulled on her gloves as he sat down on a stool beside the gurney. “So firstly, can you tell me what you remember about the attack?”

She calmly walked them through what she remembered, coolly speaking about injuries either sustained or needing to be checked. The camera clicked for the bruising on her face, neck, wrists. Then she was asked to remove her top. He noticed the look between the nurse and doctor when she did so, registering that she was clearly unconcerned about her male partner seeing her naked body. More bruising. Click. He took in a sharp breath as he saw her back, with its cuts and grazes from being repeatedly slammed into the mirror. The doctor and nurse catalogued, photo’d, cleansed the wounds, some splinters of glass carefully removed, a couple of stitches before the nurse dressed them.

“Now we need to do the pelvic examination,” explained the doctor. “I’m sorry because it’s not a nice thing to have. Do you want your partner to leave the room for this?”

“No, I want him to stay.”

He tensed up next to her and he squeezed her hand which at some point he had subconsciously taken hold of. She looked over at him and nodded a plea for him to remain. His face was etched in pain and fear but he nodded back his acceptance of her need for him to stay.

“OK, Dana, first I just need to ask a few questions.”

She nodded again. She’d tried to speak as little as possible.

“Firstly, the obvious one, do you think you were raped?”

His hand tightened around hers and they instinctively knew that if she looked at him now, they’d probably both cry. He liked to think that those parts of her body were a precious treasure that only he was allowed to share with her, to enjoy; they were his privilege and the idea of anyone else possessing them made him feel ill.

“No, I don’t think so. I suppose there is a possibility I could have passed out briefly but I don’t think I did and, besides, that wasn’t his standard M.O.”

“Well we will check to confirm. I'm very sorry to have to ask this,” the doctor hesitated and glanced over at him before returning to her, “but have you had sexual relations in the past few days?”

He saw her cheeks blush and she looked over at him but he felt like he could burn a hole in the floor with his eyes, avoiding everyone’s gaze. In his peripheral vision, he thought he caught a little smile on her face as it was her turn to squeeze his hand, causing him to look up at her as she silently told him it was ok with just a look. And in that instance, he saw how much she loved him. It was such an alien, almost inappropriate, situation to suddenly have that rush of emotion, but there it was and he could only mirror that.

“Erm, it was at the weekend, Sunday morning,” this was the first time she had stumbled her answer. Every other question she had answered with detachment, focusing purely on the science of what was happening; what evidence was being gathered and why. In many senses, he thought, she was working through the process she had done hundreds of times, completely disassociating from the fact it was being done to her body, but this question was something personal, something held close to her heart, something only the two of them really knew about.

“Did you use any form of contraception?”

She shook her head. A part of him wanted to explain that she was unable to have children so as to explain what could be seen as an irresponsible risk, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to confirm to these two strangers what they must surely know.

She grimaced at the pain of the examination. More clicks of the camera, the UV light shone as he hoped that no semen could be found, predominantly because he desperately didn’t want Pfaster to have raped her, but also because he didn’t want to have to explain to those assigned to her case how she happened to have his DNA within her.

“All clear,” her doctor confirmed and both agents let out their breath in relief. “We have to package up your clothes as evidence, but we can get you some scrubs to wear. I just want to take the precaution of a head CT, just in case, but hopefully you will be able to get home soon.”

She nodded a thank you and he felt a wave of relief crash over them both.

She was exhausted. He'd grabbed her bag out the car and carried it up to his apartment. He hadn’t needed to ask where to next as she had simply said “let’s go home” as he enfolded her in his arms, after she’d been given the all clear to leave.

He had carried her bag and set it down in his bedroom and opened it to pass her some pyjamas but, before he could, she’d peeled off the scrubs and grabbed one of his grey t-shirts and pulled it over her head. She saw him flinch as he saw the bruises on her body and the patchwork of wound dressings on her back. She had gone into his bathroom and was brushing her teeth. It hadn’t taken long for them to invest in toothbrushes for one another in their respective homes, along with shampoo and shower gel.

“I can sleep on the settee,” he offered, telling her that he would understand that she might need some space as a result of the ordeal.

“Please can you stay? Can you hold me?” she felt so small and fragile in her request; the first time she had all night. She noticed a strange look on his face; like a mixture of love, sadness, awe. She pulled a questioning expression, but he just smiled back.

“Sure, if you want me to.”

She knew he was emphasising that it was her choice and that he completely understood and would respect her choices. She simply climbed into bed and he followed. She snuggled into him and he wrapped her up in his arms, holding on to her, keeping her safe. He nuzzled and kissed the top of her head and she felt her body relax and sleep overwhelm her. 

He couldn’t sleep but, instead, kept guard, watching over her, running the events of the past few days over and over, trying to identify what he should have done to better protect the woman he loved. He simply clung on to her, as much to reassure himself as her. Eventually he must have dozed off as he jerked into wakefulness. He checked the clock and he’d only slept an hour. She had rolled away from him and he listened to her breathing to check she was still asleep, and was relieved that she was.

He couldn’t get back to sleep and, as the dull grey light of dawn started to seep into the room, he decided to get up. He knew he had to write up the report of last night and wanted to shelter her from that. She had made a statement to the investigator in her home last night and he didn’t want her to have to go through it again. He sat down at his desk and switched on his laptop and set about typing it up as the day quietly entered in.

The phone broke the stillness of the apartment and he grabbed it quickly, to silence it, hoping that it hadn’t woken her.

“Mulder,” he answered, his voice low.

“Agent Mulder,” Skinner sounded concerned. “I’ve just got into the office and been briefed on what happened at Agent Scully’s place last night. Is she ok?”

“Er, yes, I guess, shaken,” he stumbled. “she is quite battered and bruised; she needed a couple of stitches.”

“Is she at your place?” Skinner didn’t seem at all concerned that this would be an issue, that it would speak to his two agents having a more intimate relationship than policy allowed. Mulder had noted historically that Skinner didn’t seem to be interested in knowing about the depth of their relationship, and had consciously ignored the matter, as though deciding he didn’t want to know.

“Yes, she’s still asleep; I am just writing up the report for you.”

“I have read the medical report summary. Seems she had more than her fair share, but I’m glad it didn’t go too far.” Skinner’s manner was his usual clipped self, ex-military, not needing to go too much into detail or emotions, although Mulder sensed that Skinner did feel deeply, that he cared for his two troublesome agents.

“Yes,” he responded. “She had managed to get herself free and stop him before...”

“And you would have stopped it going further even if she hadn’t managed to free herself. Good work.”

“Thank you,” it seemed a strange thing to say. Thank you? Thank you for what? Thank you for getting to her place before she was raped and murdered? Yes, he supposed he was grateful for that, but he would have been more grateful had none of it had happened at all. If only she had chosen to go home with him last night, she would have been safe from it all.

“How did you know, Mulder?” Skinner asked.

“Er, well, I had a feeling – an instinct – something was wrong so I called her but she didn’t answer,” he stumbled through trying not to accidentally directly tell Skinner about the nature of their relationship. “She usually always answers.”

“And no doubt you must have picked up the message from Marshall Daddo, he mentioned in his report,” Skinner helped him to cover over any potential tells that he had given off something more. He was pretty sure Skinner knew, but he wasn't going to ask for confirmation.

“I’ll look for your report, but both of you are to rest up and take time to get back into the field. I don’t want to see either of you here before a week Monday, do you hear me?”

“Yes sir, but, I am ok, I can work,” he ventured.

“You, Agent Mulder,” Skinner barked his order. “You stay with Agent Scully; look after her, alright? And don’t let her think about work until she’s good and ready, do you hear?”

“Sir,” he responded and the line went dead. Skinner definitely knew the intimacy of their relationship and clearly was not going to raise it as an issue.

He placed the phone down and as he turned slightly, he saw her silently standing in his t-shirt at his bedroom door, almost ghost-like in her fragility.

The phone had jolted her out of sleep and she felt an immediate flash of fear. She was alone in his bed and felt upset that he had left her when she needed him so much. She heard him speaking in a low voice in his living room and so pulled herself up, flinching at a sudden shoot of pain from her injuries. She padded towards his voice but stopped when she saw him. She made no noise, just watched him until he had put the phone down and noticed her.

“Hey,” his voice was soft, caring. “You’re up! Did the phone wake you?”

“You left me,” she said it without thinking but suddenly she felt angry at him. “You left me.”

He stood up and moved towards her, reaching out his hand to take hers but she pulled away from him, and his expression went to confusion.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to get the report done before you woke,” he explained.

“But this is what you do!” she wasn’t making any sense to her, let alone him, and she didn’t know where this sudden burst of anger was coming from. “You ignore me! You always ignore me when I’m the one seeing the inexplicable. You don’t listen!”

He was stunned into silence, just staring at her and she could feel the tears burning in her eyes.

“Only you are allowed to see the supernatural, not me, just you. When I say something, you dismiss it unless it’s wholly based in science. Anything related to my faith – _anything_ – is dismissed out of hand because you don’t believe in God or the devil or religion, but don’t you see that your faith in the supernatural is just the same, just dressed up differently?!”

She could see he was confused about where this was coming from, but kept quiet whilst she vented her frustration and anger on him.

“You didn’t listen to me, and when you do that I get hurt. He was going to kill me, to rape me, Mulder, and you didn’t see it!”

She was crying now, her body wracked with sobs, as he stepped forward and pulled her towards him.

“No!” she was punching her fists against his chest, trying to pull away from him as he pulled her ever closer. “No Mulder! You didn’t look out for me! You weren’t there!”

Tears overwhelmed her anger and she stopped fighting, giving into his embrace, sobbing into his t-shirt, his arms wrapped around her and gradually hers slid around him.

“I know,” he choked out, almost inaudibly. “I know. I should have listened.”

It had hurt him deeply to see her like that, to hear her anger at him for letting her down, and he had no response to it. It was true. He’d thought it himself as they had sat on her bed last night after the attack. He did ignore her instincts. He always had and he knew he had to show her more respect and understanding. He valued her scientific approach to their investigations and he owed it to her to listen to her even when her concerns weren’t backed up by her usual rigorous analysis.

“He must have done that to me a thousand times.” Her voice was small, pained, muffled in his chest and he felt her body quake with the horror of the thought.

He felt as sickened by the thought as she did; that he had violated her over and over in his depraved imagination. “I know,” was all he could choke out.

“I don’t know how to live with that.”

“I guess you have to hold on to the fact that, despite all his planning and patience, he still didn’t get to take that from you; that all he had was his imagination but he never truly had you.”  
What else could he say? They both felt sick about what Pfaster had planned, both felt that just those thoughts had violated her and nothing could change that.

“You should probably go and see the work therapist; she’ll help you through it.”

She took in a shaky breath and sighed. She seemed to be steadying, but as she did, he felt himself losing his equilibrium. He felt an enormous weight crushing down on his chest and suddenly he was crying, devastated at what he’d almost lost. He felt like he needed to hold her close to reassure himself she was safe, but also knew that he had to be gentle and not add to her bruises.

She pulled away from him slightly and looked into his eyes and he slowly shook his head in apology. Then, in that way she did, her hand wrapped around the back of his head, pulling his forehead to her lips and kissed him, lingering there, as he saw fresh tears fall down her face. He lifted his hands to cup her face and he used his thumb to brush one away. And there they stayed, foreheads resting against one another, tears finding paths down both their faces.

“So many women don’t have a gun,” she suddenly said. They’d spent the past couple of days quietly; lying in bed together chatting, reading, or on his couch watching crap TV eating even crappier food, or playing cards. There was a stillness and peace that shielded them and they had laughed and enjoyed just being together, without work in the way.

She looked over at him and he’d paused following her statement, pulling them back to the trauma that they had intermittently revisited.

“No, they don’t,” he simply responded.

“So many women find themselves being attacked, beaten, raped, and they have no defence against that. If I hadn’t had a gun, Mulder...” her words trailed off.

“But you did,” he shrugged his shoulders at her.

“Most countries in the world don’t have the levels of access to guns that the US does,” she continued.

“And they are generally much safer places to live than America,” he countered. “Do you know just how many murders happen in America simply because you can buy a gun alongside your groceries in Walmart?”

“That is very true as well,” she conceded. “But, because I had a gun, I was able to fight back, to stop him. And that makes me so much luckier than so many others.”

She looked at him and they both wordlessly acknowledged the validity of her statement, of the contradiction of more violence because of the right to bear arms versus the exact same thing having protected them both multiple times over their 6 and a half years together.

“You know, I don’t think I’d even have a weapon if it wasn’t for working with the FBI,” she mused. “Would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she noted that there wasn’t any hesitation in his response.

“I don’t know, maybe I would? Dad and Bill always had guns... Maybe I would have just because of my upbringing? But as a doctor I would see so much damage created by guns, perhaps I might have seen them as an unnecessary evil?”

“But you do have a gun, because it’s our job, because we run into far more unsavoury individuals than most,” he paused. “I don’t know, you would be so much safer were it not for the nature of our work. The men – sorry, _people_ – who have attacked us over the years would probably never have crossed paths with either of us and as such owning a gun would be irrelevant.”

“I shot you once,” she caught his eye with her mischievous grin, trying to stifle a giggle.

“Yes, you did,” he chuckled and feigned annoyance. “I had it coming though.”

“Indeed. In fact, it’s a wonder I’ve only actually shot you once. Some days I hardly make it through 5 minutes without the urge to shoot!”

They laughed, and that laughter was so healing for them both. There was such a sense of safety when she was with him, she noted. Not just a physical safety, but an emotional safety; she knew that she could be exactly who she was with him. She could laugh, cry, scream and shout and it was all okay because his love was enfolding her. She’d seen him cry several times during their relationship, she’d made him cry. They’d cried together over what had happened to her with Pfaster; yes, he was so often strong for her, but knowing he shared her hurt, her pain only strengthened the ties between them.

She thought about how gentle he was. The way he guided her with his hand in the small of her back, how he knew exactly when to pause and check how she was, how he would hold her when she felt weak, his kiss on her forehead. The way he protected her. She knew in her core that he would never hurt her, he was so delicate when he touched her. She valued how he had just held her in his arms at night, not asking for more, aware that she would let him know when she felt able to be touched again, to feel his body moving against hers.

He had gone with her back to her apartment that afternoon, to check in with the professional cleaning service and insurance company about putting her home back together. He had offered to go in her place, but she’d told him that she needed to go, to see the place, see how it was being put to right once more, as though seeing her home being mended was important for her emotional recovery. It hadn’t been as awful as she thought it would be. All trace of her attacker had been removed and, unbeknownst to her, Mulder had asked her mom to go in and throw out all the candles from the bathroom, the toiletries, even her towels, replacing them with something new, untainted.

She hadn’t realised that he had been in such regular contact with her mom through the week, and she was there when they arrived, giving her a much-needed embrace and fussing around her in the way only a mom can. Her mom had bought fresh flowers and placed them in a vase on her dresser. It had surprised her how busy he had been coordinating the restoration of her home, presumably while she had been sleeping.

She had questioned if he was actually a shape-shifter and not the real Mulder; surely the man who perpetually forgot her birthday wasn’t capable of all this?! She let out a chuckle at the thought and he looked at her confused. She just beamed at him and he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in close, kissing her head, her cheek but almost imperceptibly held back, waiting for the slightest gesture from her permitting him to kiss her lips.

He lay there thinking about her, about how strong she was, how brave, how beautiful. He didn’t think there could be another human alive who had faced the adversities she had and yet come through them with such grace and determination. This latest incident made him feel sick every time he thought about it, but he was grateful for Skinner’s unspoken understanding that he should stay off work as well as Scully; their AD cognisant that it was by being together that she would be restored.

He was slightly intrigued by what had given away the shift in their relationship. It was only a few months since their first kiss, the first time they had made love. He wondered if Skinner had somehow picked up on a change in the dynamics between them. Perhaps he hadn’t? Perhaps he just assumed that they were in a physical relationship because he’d seen they were in love with one another? They’d been in love for years though. Perhaps their boss thought that they’d been having sex for years? He didn’t know, and he definitely wasn’t going to ask. He wondered how many others in the Bureau thought they were doing it and grinned at how they would probably be shocked how long it had actually taken them to reach where they were today.

She nuzzled her head into his shoulder, her arm on his chest and right leg draped over his, and he leant his head down to kiss her hair. He felt her respond by rocking her hips slightly against him and her hand seemingly twitched into consciousness, stroking him slightly. He smiled but didn’t take it any further. He knew that he needed to allow her to make the move, only once she was ready to. She moved again, her hips started to grind back and forth and after a while she lifted up her head and kissed him gently. He continued to allow her to make the moves, although she was knowingly encouraging him along as he felt his arousal increase. The moonlight glinted in her eyes and he smiled at her before she leant in and kissed him again. Her hand was stroking his abdomen, slowly moving lower and lower until she reached the waistband of his boxers and she slipped inside. He tried to stay controlled but her kisses were deepening, and he could feel her arousal against his thigh.

“Are you sure?” he whispered and she nodded, so he rolled them slightly so she was now on her back and him on his side, enabling him to more easily, slowly, gently stroke her body, lazily moving his hand up, under his usurped t-shirt.

Silently, reverently, gently they made love; moving slowly, checking at each point that she was ready, him always ready to pull back if she showed any sign of anxiety or hesitation.

The next night they returned to her apartment, where he stayed with her until she was ready to face it without him. It took her longer to feel able to make love again in her bed, but she knew she was safe with him, that he would never hurt her or take anything from her without permission. She wondered how she would have pulled herself through the trauma of the attack if she didn’t have him, how much longer it would have taken her to feel able to trust a man, had he not already been by her side, in love with her. But he had helped her to reclaim herself, her home, her sexuality, her ability to trust, to love and be loved. She knew she was blessed, and felt in her heart that her God had not judged her for shooting Pfaster, but had protected her by enfolding her in love.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are struggling with mental health issues, especially around sexual assault, there is help out there. Often the hardest thing you can do is to simply ask for help. You can get support to help you through:
> 
> Australia: www.sane.org / www.rape-dvservices.org.au  
> Canada: www.cmha.ca / www.canadahelps.org/en/explore/charities/?q=Sexual+assault  
> New Zealand: www.mentalhealth.org.nz / www.ocasa.org.nz/new-zealand-support-services.html  
> Republic of Ireland: www.mentalhealthireland.ie / www.rapecrisishelp.ie  
> UK: www.mind.org.uk / rapecrisis.org.uk  
> USA: www.nami.org / www.rainn.org


End file.
